“But your truth is a lie,” shouted the little mouse who had not been allowed to speak yet. “I can cook the soup and I will do it!”
HOW THE SOUP WAS COOKED
“I have not traveled,” declared the fourth mouse. “I have stayed in our country and that, I think, was the most sensible thing to do. One does not have to make a journey, everything can be got here just as well. I stayed at home! I have not learned anything from supernatural beings, or eaten my way to being a poet, or held conversations with owls. What I know I have taught myself! Now put the pot on the fire and fill it with water, all the way up to the brim. Make the fire burn well, for I want the water to be really boiling, then throw in the sausage pin. Now will Your Majesty be so kind as to stick his tail down in the soup and stir it? The longer Your Majesty does it the stronger the soup will be. No more is needed, no other ingredients, it needs only to be stirred.”
“Couldn’t someone else do it as well?” asked the mouse king.
“No!” said the little female mouse.” That kind of power can only be found in a royal tail.”
The water in the pot was boiling furiously. The mouse king stood as close to it as he dared, then he stuck out his tail, in the same manner as mice do when they take the cream off the top of the milk with their tails. But here was no cream to lick afterward, only steam from the boiling water. Quickly, he jumped away!
“Yes, naturally, that must be the way it is made. You are to be my queen!” he declared. “But I think we will wait to make the soup until our golden wedding. Then the poor in my country will have something to look forward to.”
The wedding was held, but some of the mice said—not at the castle but when they came home later—that that could not be called cooking soup upon a sausage pin, it was more like cooking soup upon a mouse tail.
They found a few of the other things that had been said quite clever; but most of it could have been said somewhat differently and better.
“Now I would have explained it this way or that way.…” That was the critique; it is always clever; and it comes last.
The story went around the world; people’s reactions to it were divided, but the story remained whole. And that is the most important in great things as well as in small—in cooking soup upon a sausage pin. Just remember, don’t expect to be thanked for it.
82
The Pepperman’s Nightcap
In Copenhagen there is a street with a strange name; it is called Hyskenstræde. Why does it have that name and what does it mean? It was originally German but the Danes have changed it to fit their own tongue. Häuschen means “little houses” in German, and once, several hundred years ago, that was, indeed, the right name for the street. The houses were really nothing more than large wooden sheds; they looked a little bit like the booths you see in the market place. They had windows, but not with glass in them. No, they were either very tiny and made of horn, or just small and covered by a pig’s bladder, for glass was terribly expensive then. It all happened so long ago that even your great-grandfather’s great-grandfather would have referred to it as “olden times.”
In those days the rich merchants of Bremen and Lübeck had much of their trade in Copenhagen. They did not come up here themselves but sent their agents; and it was they who lived on the street of the small houses, where they sold beer and spices. The German beer was better than the Danish; and there were so many kinds: Bremer, Prysing, and Emser; yes, and Braunschweiger Mumme; and then there were all the different spices: saffron, anise, ginger, and pepper. The greatest trade was, naturally, in pepper; and that is why these emissaries of the merchants of Bremen and Lübeck were called peppermen. The merchants, thinking only of what was good for their own purses, demanded that their agents promise not to marry while abroad. For once a man has taken a wife and settled down with a family, one cannot be assured of his loyalty.
Some of the German peppermen spent most of their lives in foreign countries. They became odd, lonely old men who cooked their own food, darned and repaired their own clothes, and tended their own lonely fires. Cut off by their different customs and habits from the rest of the people, they were left to themselves. In Denmark to this day a bachelor—an unmarried, middle-aged man—is called a pepperman. All of this I have told you so that you will be able to understand my story.
The pepperman was an object of ridicule. In the streets people would shout after him, telling him that he ought to put on his nightcap, pull it down over his eyes, and go to bed!
“Chop, chop firewood.
Woe, woe to the pepperman
With a nightcap on his head,
He snuffs out his candle and goes to bed.”
Yes, that is what they used to sing. They made fun of the pepperman and his nightcap, and that was because they did not know him or the nightcap. Oh, that nightcap! That was a curse that no one should wish upon himself! Why? Listen, and I will tell you why.
In the street of the little houses, in olden times, there were no cobblestones and the passers-by were always stepping into muddy holes. It looked like a country road with too much traffic on it—nor was it broad. The booths were built close together, and the street was so narrow that in summer it was often covered by stretching a canvas awning from the roofs on one side of the street to those opposite them. Then it would smell even more strongly of pepper, saffron, and ginger. The agents standing behind the counters were, on the whole, not young men; nor did they wear wigs, tight-fitting pants, and the long dress coats with silver buttons that our great-grandfather’s great-grandfather wore, as we know from paintings.
The peppermen could never afford to have themselves painted, they were much too poor for that. Though it certainly would have been nice, now, to have a picture of one of them as he looked when he stood behind his counter or went to church on Sunday. Then he wore a broad-brimmed hat with a high crown—the younger peppermen sometimes put feathers in their hats. The woolen shirt was almost hidden by a large linen collar; the pepperman’s jacket was tight-fitting, and he had a wide cape over his shoulders. His pants were long and hung all the way down to his broad, square-toed shoes—for he never wore any stockings. Stuck in his belt were a spoon and a knife; and the knife was there not only to eat with; it was often necessary for men to defend themselves in those times.
In just this manner one of the older peppermen, Anton, dressed, except that he never wore the broad-brimmed hat with a crown, but only a cap with a nightcap underneath it. Anton had two nightcaps; they were exactly alike, and one of them was always on his head. He would have been a wonderful model for a painter. He was as thin as a stick, his face was filled with wrinkles, and his hands were long and fine. His eyebrows were bushy and gray, and the one above his left eye was heavier than the other; this did not make him more handsome but certainly easier to recognize. It was said that he came from Bremen, but that was not true; Bremen was the home of his master. He was from Thuringia, from a town called Eisenach not far from Wartburg. Anton seldom talked about his home, and that made him think about it all the more.
The old peppermen had little to do with each other. Each lived by himself in his own booth. When they closed their stalls early in the evening, the street was deserted.
From the little tiny windows of the second story, where the peppermen lived, a faint glow could be seen. Inside each one, a man would be sitting on his bed with his German hymnbook on his lap singing a psalm before he went to bed; or he might be darning, or straightening up his booth for the morning. It was not an enviable life. To be a stranger in a strange country is a bitter lot. One is never noticed unless one gets in someone’s way, and then one is cursed.
On a rainy winter night the street looked gloomy and forbidding. There were no street lamps; the only light came from the little lamp in front of the picture of the Virgin painted on the wall at the corner. From the other end of the street, the melancholy sound of the water splashing against the oak timbering of the wharf could be heard.
Such lonely evenings were v
ery long. One could not polish the metal pans of the scales or find things to unpack and arrange every evening. Then one had to find something else to do; and old Anton would repair his clothes or mend his shoes until he was tired enough to sleep. When he got into bed he would pull his nightcap a little further down over his eyes. But soon he would lift it again to make sure that he had blown out the tallow candle properly; he would press with his finger around the wick to be certain that it wasn’t smoldering; then he would lean back, pull the nightcap down again, and turn onto his side. But he could not sleep; now it was the little brazier down in the shop he was worrying about. Were all the embers dead, and had they been properly covered with ashes? One little spark could do great damage!
He got out of bed and made his way down the ladder, for one could not call anything as rickety as they were stairs. There wasn’t an ember left in the brazier, it was cold. He could go back to bed; but as often as not he would not get more than halfway up the ladder, when a doubt about whether he had secured the door with the iron bar, and locked the shutters, would make him climb down again. He was so cold that his teeth chattered even after he finally had got back into bed. It is often then that coldness is worst, just before it leaves.
Anton pulled the covers up and his nightcap down, and thought no more about his daily difficulties and his trade. But the thoughts that came to him now weren’t pleasant either, for when the curtains of old memories are filled with pins, then you stick yourself on them. Ouch! you scream as the blood drips where the pins pricked, and it hurts so much that tears come into your eyes.
Anton cried often. Hot tears fell like pearls on his covers. If he dried his eyes with his nightcap, the tears would disappear but not the spring from which they had sprung; that would be there still, for it lay in his heart. The pictures from the past did not come in the order they had happened. Those that were the saddest came more often; but, strangely enough, it was the memory of happy moments that cast the longest and most painful shadow.
“The Danish beech forest is lovely,” people would say, but far lovelier to Anton was the forest near Wartburg. In his eyes the old oak trees that grew near the castles in his homeland were grander and more dignified than any oak tree here. The apple trees smelled stronger there than they did in Denmark, where everything was flat and no green creepers covered granite cliffs. He saw it all and still felt it within his heart.
A tear fell. He saw so clearly, so vividly, two children playing together: a boy and a little girl. The boy had red cheeks, blond curly hair, and two honest blue eyes. The boy was himself—Anton. The little girl had brown eyes and black hair; she looked brave and spirited; she was the mayor’s daughter Molly. They were playing with an apple. They shook it and heard the seeds rattle inside it, then they cut it in two and shared it; they divided the seeds as well and ate them all but one, which the girl had decided ought to be planted.
“Then you shall see what will happen, you won’t believe it! But a whole apple tree can grow from it, though not right away.”
The seed was planted in a pot. The two children were equally eager; the boy dug a hole with his fingers in the soil, and the girl dropped the seed into it. They both filled up the hole and smoothed down the earth.
“You mustn’t look tomorrow to see whether it has taken root,” said the girl. “I did that to my flowers twice, I wanted to see if they were growing. I didn’t know any better then, and the flowers died.”
The flowerpot stayed at Anton’s all winter. He looked at it every morning, but there was nothing to be seen, only the black earth. Spring came, and the sun began to give warmth. Something happened: two little green leaves peeped up through the soil.
“There are Molly and I!” said Anton. “They are beautiful, they are marvelous!”
Soon a third leaf appeared. What could that mean? More leaves unfurled themselves. Day by day, week by week, the plant grew until it was a tiny apple tree. All of this was mirrored in one tear, which dried and disappeared, but could spring forth again from old Anton’s heart.
Near Eisenach is a chain of craggy mountains. One of them—to its shame, it is rather rounded—has neither trees nor bushes growing on it. It is called the mountain of Venus, and a goddess from heathen times lives inside it. The local people call her Frau Holle.
Every child in Eisenach can tell you the legend of how she enticed the noble knight Tannhäuser, the minnesinger from Wartburg, inside her mountain.
Little Molly and Anton often walked as far as the foot of that mountain, and once Molly asked, “Do you dare knock on the stone and say: ‘Frau Holle, Frau Holle, open up, Tannhäuser has come!’ ”
Anton didn’t dare but Molly did. True, she only said the words “Frau Holle, Frau Holle,” loudly; the rest she mumbled so softly that Anton could not even hear her, and he felt certain that she hadn’t mentioned Tannhäuser’s name.
But brave and bold she was. Sometimes when she was playing with other girls and Anton would come, and all the other girls would try to kiss him, just because they knew he didn’t like it and would hit out at them, Molly would declare proudly: “I’m not afraid to kiss him.” And she would throw her arms around his neck. It pleased her vanity and Anton did not object nor did he think much about it, though Molly was beautiful and full of spirit. Frau Holle, who lived in the mountain, was supposed to be beautiful too, but her beauty was evil. The most beautiful of all was the Blessed Elisabeth. She was the patron saint of Anton’s country. How many places had not her good deeds sanctified? And how many legends were told about her! A painting of the pious princess hung in the church above a silver lamp. But Molly didn’t look at all like her.
The apple tree that the two children had planted grew, year by year. Finally it was so big that it had to be planted in the garden, where the air was fresh, where the dew fell and the sun shone so warmly. It lived through the winter and when the next spring came it blossomed; in the fall there hung two apples on it, one for Molly and one for Anton—less could not have been expected.
The tree flourished and Molly grew: fresh and lovely as an apple blossom she was; but Anton was not to look much longer at this flower. The only thing constant is change! Molly’s father moved away from his old home and Molly went with him. Today in the age of steam, the journey to her new home would have taken no more than a few hours, but then it seemed like a great distance. From Eisenach one traveled east for a full day and a night till one reached the border of Thuringia. Molly’s new home was in a town called Weimar.
Molly wept and Anton wept, and all their tears shed then became one tear on an old man’s cheek so many years later. But then there had been one ray of happiness in all the sorrow: Molly has said that she cared more for him than all the splendor of Weimar.
Three years passed and in all that time Anton received only two letters: one the freightman had carried, the other a traveler brought. The distance between the two towns was long. They were separated by a poor, winding road that passed through many towns and villages.
Often Molly and Anton had heard the story of Tristan and Isolde, and Anton had imagined that the story was about him and Molly Though the name Tristan did not fit Anton, for it means “he who is born to sorrow,” and that Anton did not believe he was. Nor did Anton ever think that Molly would forget him, as Tristan had suspected of Isolde. But Isolde had not forgotten her Tristan; that had been something he imagined. When they were dead and buried on opposite sides of the churchyard, the linden trees—one on each of their graves—grew so tall that their branches could meet and flower together above the high roof of the church. That part of the legend had seemed to Anton so beautiful and yet so melancholy. Nothing as sorrowful as that could happen to him and Molly. Whenever he thought of the legend, Anton would whistle a song of the minnesinger, Walther von der Vogelweide:
“Under the linden tree, by the heath …”
He liked especially the lines:
“By the forest, in the quiet dale,
Tandaradai!
Sang the nightingale.”
It was his favorite song and he sang it that moonlit night while he was riding along the sunken road to Weimar to see Molly. He wanted to come unexpected and unexpected he arrived.
He was bade welcome and his glass filled up with wine. Everyone was polite and pleasant. He was introduced to distinguished people. He was given a cheerful chamber with a good bed to sleep in. Yet none of it was as he had dreamed it would be. He could not understand what was the matter with himself or the people around him—but we can!
Sometimes you can live in a home, among a family, belonging and yet not belonging. You know the others, you talk with them, but you talk as you would to other passengers in a stagecoach; and you know them as you would know fellow travelers. They annoy you, and you wish that you had reached your destination and were no longer in the coach; or you wish that the person sitting next to you had got off at the last stop. Such were the feelings that Anton had.
“I wish to be honest,” Molly finally said to him. “Therefore, I want to tell it to you myself. Many things have changed since we were children together. Our souls as well as our bodies are not the same. Old habits and dreams have not the same power over our hearts as they once had, Anton! I do not want to make you my enemy. Soon I will be living so far away from here. I have only the kindest memories of you, but I do not love you as I have learned now that a woman can love a man. I have never loved you in that way, you will have to accept that, Anton! Good-by!”
Anton bade her good-by, but not a tear came into his eyes; he felt that he was no longer Molly’s friend, he was her enemy. An iron bar, whether it is heated red hot or cools below zero, will smart the lips in the same way if you kiss it; and Anton kissed equally hard in love and hate.